What makes the WHU’s Online MBA curriculum unique

Professor Dr. Fabiola Gerpott is a professor of leadership and teaches the Organizational Behavior course in the Global Online MBA program at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. She feels that the program is unique because it teaches students to work with others effectively.

She explains that “no employee is an island. We all work with people every day, and as we all know, this also comes with a lot of issues.” (00:51)

Professor Dr. Dries Faems takes things a step further in his Innovation and Transformation in the Digital Age course. He hopes to teach students how to innovate and collaborate with other companies in an increasingly digital world. 

Namely, he wants students to learn that “if a company wants to be successful in digitalization, they will also need to work together with other companies. So, open innovation, collaborating with other partners…is really an essential part of a successful digitalization trajectory.” (01:15)

WHU Online MBA student expectations

The WHU Global Online MBA program faculty have specific expectations for their students.

Professor Dr. Michael Frankel is an economics expert who teaches a number of courses related to the global economy. While studying with him, he wants students to “approach every topic of the course with a very open mind because most students learn something that is a little bit contrary to what they had thought before.” (01:55)

Dr. Fabiola Gerpott adds that she wants her students to have “a willingness to be self-critical. To reflect on [their] assumptions and to be open to changing them.” (01:34)

Dr. Dries Farms wants students to use their knowledge and perspectives to make for lively, fulfilling class discussions. He describes that students should “actively participate, come up with [their] own examples, and actually contribute.” (01:43)

The expectations that WHU professors set for themselves

Students aren’t the only ones with expectations to meet in WHU’s Global Online MBA program. The faculty also set guidelines for themselves as to how they want to interact with the students in their courses.

For instance, Dr. Michael Frankel explains that his students can expect “a very enthusiastic teaching component, namely both in the videos and the synchronous meetings, and accessibility. That means you can approach me by email and you can expect that I answer your questions within a relatively short period of time.” (02:30)

Dr. Fabiola Gerpott concludes that including students’ real-world experiences is an important part of her teaching method. She elaborates that “we will work on [students’ own] examples and we will consult with each other on how to make [everyone] better functioning individuals within [their] organizations.” (02:57)

Overall, if you’re interested in taking an MBA program that will fit flexibly into your existing schedule, challenge you, and prepare you to be a business leader in an increasingly digitized world, the WHU Global Online MBA program is perfect for you.